


And Then...

by WiliQueen



Category: Being Human
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-13
Updated: 2010-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WiliQueen/pseuds/WiliQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When all is quiet in the little pink house. (Epilogue to Series 1)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then...

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Amaka, darkmagess, and Shadow for beta insights and title brainstorming.

A dozen times at least, Mitchell has dreamt he was there when Lauren came back from the dead.

It's a bit different each time.  Sometimes she clutches at him instinctively, looking round in frantic confusion for the men with sticks and rope he knows she's just seen.  Sometimes she cries.  Sometimes she thanks him.  Once she catches him in the jaw with a beautiful right cross, then stares wide-eyed and open-mouthed as it sends him crashing into the wall.

Each time he thinks, _Now it'll be different_.  She'll never throw his abandonment in his face before returning to be passed among neglectful strangers because she has nowhere else to turn.  She'll never stalk and harass him, lashing out in fury and pain he's powerless to heal.

Maybe, just maybe, she'll never press a stake into his hand and hold its point over her own heart.

Funny, though -- he never dreams he has the sense to stay out of her bed in the first place, or the will to keep his teeth to himself once he's there.  Or even the bitter wisdom to let her die innocent and whole.

He can't quite work out what that says about him.

 

***

 

George is sure his heart stopped for a moment when Nina said, "It looks so painful."  He still can't believe she didn't leave straight after.  Not that she has any way of knowing Julia said those same words before walking away forever.

Should he tell her?  He's promised to tell her as much as he can, once they've both had a meal and a sleep and a bit of normality.  As much as he can bear, he said.  He has a feeling she could bear far more.  But that detail wouldn't serve any purpose except to make her feel bad for saying it, when it was such a lovely, thoughtful thing to say instead of "What the bloody hell?" or "You're right, this can never work."  Or any of the hundred other things he expected to hear.

He never predicted that one.  Which, as he considers it now, was really rather thick of him.  Probably it hurt too much, but now Nina's changed that.  Nina's changed... everything, really.

_Something I love._

He smiles into his pillow, remembering the shape of the words in his own mouth.  Remembering the taste of her mouth as they kissed at the front door.  The tired twist of her smile, fingers tugging at the end of her sleeve, as if his nervousness is rubbing off on her.

She'll see him later, she said.  And he knows it's true.

 

***

 

Annie sits curled in her chair, late-afternoon sun slanting over her shoulder to pool on the floor in front of her.  Just for a second, she wishes she could take off her slippers and socks and feel the warmth of it on her skin.  But only a second, and then she's calm and content again.  It seems a lifetime since she's felt the urge to bustle about, making tea for nobody.

The boys are sleeping off the exhaustion and hurts of the endless last few days, and the house is quiet.

Her boys.  Her house.  Her family.

It's not the one she planned -- that was planned for her, really.  She's not a wife or a mother, and she never will be.  But she is loved, and needed, and home.

And now she's a hero.  She's still trying to wrap her mind round that, embarrassed by the awe on Mitchell's face when she told him.  It was so easy, vampires and furniture blown out of her way like so many bits of insignificant paper.  A dozen defenseless people alive and free because of her.

With a thought, she's in the lounge, running a hand over the corner cupboard where her portal was.  There's no trace of it now, no coldness or vibration or anything like that.  It's just a cupboard.

She's made her choice, and nothing has ever felt more right.


End file.
